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| Congress unwilling to face Jammu electorate | | ULB Elections? | | Neha
JAMMU, Apr 18: Is the NC-Congress coalition Government really interested in holding civic elections in the State? The answer seems to be no. The NC is not interested because it feels, and very rightly, that the holding of elections to elect new urban local bodies at this point in point would only help its arch political rival PDP to capture the ruling party's political space in the Kashmir Valley. The NC has over the period lost its sheen and appeal and has become thoroughly unpopular because of its umpteen acts of omission and commission and its failure to deliver on any front. The fact of the matter is that it has lost touch with the masses and squandered the invaluable opportunity provided by the Congress high command by indulging in the politics of rabble-rousing and not discharging its obligations towards the people. The NC is aware of the ground realities and its objective right now is to complete full term. The NC leadership knows that the people would reject the party as and when elections are held in the State.
If the NC has become unpopular in the Kashmir Valley, the Congress has lost the people's confidence in Jammu province. The Congress is not only organizationally weak and vertically divided into two groups, which are pulling in different directions, but also afraid of facing the angry electorate of Jammu province. It, like the NC, has lost touch with the masses, with the Congress Ministers not looking beyond their respective constituencies and the bulk of Congress leaders not doing anything whatever to revive their contacts with the people who really matter. There is also no coordination between the Congress ministers and Congress leaders and workers.
The Congress is also afraid of facing the Jammu electorate because its leadership knows that it has not fulfilled any of the promises it solemnly made in its 2008 election manifesto. It had promised an amendment in the State Constitution calculated to federalize the State polity and establish an adequately empowered regional council in Jammu, but it has not done anything in this regard. It had held out a categorical commitment that it would set a delimitation commission and enable Jammu province to obtain its due share of representation in the Assembly, but it has not done anything in this regard. It had promised that it would end discrimination with the people of Jammu province, but it has utterly failed to mitigate the sufferings of its people. On the contrary, the discrimination with the people of Jammu province under the present dispensation of which the Congress is a part has assumed alarming proportions. The Congress had held out a commitment that it would work for the national unity and territorial integrity of India, but it has played a role that has further widened the already rather wide gulf between the State and New Delhi. The fact of the matter is that it has been giving unstinted and unqualified support to the NC which has been consistently and systematically muddying the waters in the State by pandering to separatists and communalists, denouncing the institution of the Army, speaking the language Pakistan speaks and indulging in politics of soft secessionism.
Yes, there are reports in a section of print media that the State Government might hold urban bodies' elections in May or June this year, but it is difficult to believe the reports to this effect. How could the mortally afraid NC and Congress think in terms of holding civic elections at a time when the people of the State have by and large distanced themselves from these two ruling parties? They cannot. It would be a big decision if they actually organize civic elections in the next couple of months. |
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